


Then They Dream of Love

by ipreferaviators



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipreferaviators/pseuds/ipreferaviators
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercutio<br/>Valentine's monument<br/>Verona, Italy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then They Dream of Love

My dear Mercutio,

I told you once, as we lay in solemn contentment under a moonless sky, that I believed your pride and anger to beget your end. But we have both seen how mistaken I was, you from your rest and me from my prison of grief and solitude. For you shall live on forever in the honour of your family's name, and it is I who waste away, in a piteous, eager march toward death, hidden away from all those I once held dear. I have found safety from the callous hand of the Prince's laws, but I fear that I cannot find safety from the terrible sea of regret and sorrow within my own mind. My benefactors are kind and will not give word of my presence here in Padua, for I would but bring my family pain were I to return. I am surrounded now by those who believe in the sanctity and sorrow of love, and I am forever indebted to their faith in my devotion to you.

I leave you now with but a single thought. I pray that in your exploration of the life that is to come, you will hold me with you in continuing affection, as I hold you in my every secret movement and reflection. I will forever lament that I could not hold you in your final breath, and I pass judgment upon myself in each waking moment for my cowardice that fateful day. I beg you for forgiveness, on my knees as I would to the most capricious diety or king, and I seek unearned clemency in my prayers each evening. I implore you, Mercutio, to find a moment, as you venture through that timeless paradise, to pause and grant me my heart's only remaining desire. I cannot release myself from these shackles I know you haved turned the key of clemency.

My love goes with you, always and wherever you may journey in your voyages through the great beyond. I will write again when the sun once more rises over the walls of the monastery that shelters me from the cruel winds of our shared fate.

Yours eternally,

Benvolio


End file.
